Cultural Variations Of Halloween

Brazilians celebrate the public holiday of Finados (Day of the Dead) people go to cemeteries and churches with flowers and candles, and offer prayers. The celebration is intended to be positive to celebrate those who are deceased.

Dia de los Muertos celebrations in Mexico can be traced back to its indigenous pagan cultures. Rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors had been observed by these civilizations perhaps for as long as 2,500–3,000 years. In the pre-Hispanic era, skulls were commonly kept as trophies and displayed during the rituals to symbolize death and rebirth.

Samhain is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature. Many important events in Irish mythology happen or begin on Samhain. It was the time when cattle were brought back down from the summer pastures and when livestock were slaughtered for the winter. In much of the Gaelic world, bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them, as at Beltane. People and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames. Samhain (like Beltane) was seen as a time when the "door" to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings, to come into our world. Feasts were had, at which the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend and a place set at the table for them. It has thus been likened to a festival of the dead. People also took steps to protect themselves from harmful spirits, which is thought to have led to the custom of guising.

Begging at the door grew from an ancient English custom of knocking at doors to beg for a "soul cake" in return for which the beggars promised to pray for the dead of the household. Soul cakes, a form of shortbread — and sometimes quite fancy, with currants for eyes — became more important for the beggars than prayers for the dead, it is said.

The refrains sung at the door varied from "a soul cake, a soul cake, have mercy on all Christian souls for a soul cake," to the later:

Soul, soul, an apple or two,
If you haven't an apple, a pear will do,
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for him who made us all.
Soul cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry.

Christanity may have bastardized the Celtic Samhain, but at least it still had meaning... whereas the secular America has reduced All Hallows' Eve to an orgy of sensory gratification, and the hypersexualization of females.



As a child, I simply associated this night with receiving candy from strangers... keep to the more affluent "safe" neighborhoods and covet the brand name candies... because of course, high fructose corn syrup and petroleum-based colorants = good, and it's so much easier to conceal a razor blade in an apple than tamper with a Snickers bar?

The Morning Star

Mankind has long been fascinated by the appearance of Venus aka the Morning Star. Of particular interest here: the conflicting representation in the Old vs. New Testament. Later, we will examine the various roles this planet has played in world mythology.

First let's take a look at how the Morning Star was characterized by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah (don't believe me? Look up *morning star in your bible's index, and it will direct you to):

Isa 14:12 How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!

Of course that wouldn't play well for converting gentiles who undoubtedly harbored a positive perception of "the light bearer", so Venus was remodeled to conform with Hellenistic thought (and ultimately designed for Roman consumption) in the new Testament. Thereby widening out their congregation / consumer base.

2 Peter 1:19 Therefore we regard the message of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp that is shining in a gloomy place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Rev 2:28 Just as I have received authority from my Father, I will also give him the morning star.

The idea seems to be, that the Saviour would give him something that would resemble that morning planet in beauty and splendor - perhaps meaning that it would be placed as a gem in his diadem, and would sparkle on his brow - bearing some such relation to him who is called "the Sun of Righteousness," as the morning star does to the glorious sun on his rising. If so, the meaning would be that he would receive a beautiful ornament, bearing a near relation to the Redeemer himself as a bright sun - a pledge that the darkness was past - but one whose beams would melt away into the superior light of the Redeemer himself, as the beams of the morning star are lost in the superior glory of the sun.

But this scripture is most intriguing... particularly when juxtaposed with the passage from Isaiah:

Rev 22:16 I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this message for the churches. I am both the source of David and the heir to his throne. I am the bright morning star.

Taking the aforementioned passages into consideration, it is puzzling how any "Christian" who has actually studied the scriptures, can adopt such vitriolic malice toward the "Blazing Star" iconography. Didn't make it to the last page of your favorite book? The Morning Star is invoked by the messiah himself at Revelations 22:16 "I am the bright morning star." these are literally the last words of Jesus Christ in the bible. Don't take my word for it... blow off the dust & take a look with your own eyes. Now, is it any wonder that the blazing star is ubiquitous throughout religious and secular sources worldwide?

Whenever I am puzzled by incongruities in the Bible or christian doctrine in general, I find it most enlightening to examine the source mythology from which it was plagiarized:

As one of the brightest objects in the sky, Venus has been known since prehistoric times and as such has gained an entrenched position in human culture. It is described in Babylonian cuneiformic texts such as the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, which relates observations that possibly date from 1600 BC. The Babylonians named the planet Ishtar (Sumerian Inanna), the personification of womanhood, and goddess of love.

 

The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, dated 1581 BC, records the observations of Babylonian astrologers. It refers to Venus as Nin-dar-an-na, or "bright queen of the sky".

The Ancient Egyptians believed Venus to be two separate bodies and knew the morning star as Tioumoutiri and the evening star as Ouaiti. Likewise, believing Venus to be two bodies, the Ancient Greeks called the morning star Φωσφόρος, Phosphoros (Latinized Phosphorus), the "Bringer of Light" or Ἐωσφόρος, Eosphoros (Latinized Eosphorus), the "Bringer of Dawn". The evening star they called Hesperos (Latinized Hesperus) (Ἓσπερος, the "star of the evening").

By Hellenistic times, the ancient Greeks realized the two were the same planet, which they named after their goddess of love, Aphrodite (Phoenician Astarte). Hesperos would be translated into Latin as Vesper and Phosphoros as Lucifer ("Light Bearer"), a poetic term later used to refer to the fallen angel cast out of heaven. The Romans, who derived much of their religious pantheon from the Greek tradition, named the planet Venus after their goddess of love. Pliny the Elder (Natural History, ii,37) identified the planet Venus with Isis.

In Iranian mythology, especially in Persian mythology, the planet usually corresponds to the goddess Anahita. In some parts of Pahlavi literature the deities Aredvi Sura and Anahita are regarded as separate entities, the first one as a personification of the mythical river and the latter as a goddess of fertility which is associated with the planet Venus. As the goddess Aredvi Sura Anahita—and simply called Anahita as well—both deities are unified in other descriptions, e. g. in the Greater Bundahishn, and are represented by the planet. However, in the Avestan text Mehr Yasht (Yasht 10) there is a possible early link to Mithra. The Persian name of the planet today is "Nahid" which derives from Anahita and later in history from the Pahlavi language Anahid.

The planet Venus was important to the Maya civilization, who developed a religious calendar based in part upon its motions, and held the motions of Venus to determine the propitious time for events such as war. They named it Noh Ek', the Great Star, and Xux Ek', the Wasp Star. The Maya were aware of the planet's synodic period, and could compute it to within a hundredth part of a day.

The Mayan Dresden Codex, which calculates its appearances

The Maasai people named the planet Kileken, and have an oral tradition about it called The Orphan Boy.



Venus is important in many Australian aboriginal cultures, such as that of the Yolngu people in Northern Australia. The Yolngu gather after sunset to await the rising of Venus, which they call Barnumbirr. As she approaches, in the early hours before dawn, she draws behind her a rope of light attached to the Earth, and along this rope, with the aid of a richly decorated "Morning Star Pole", the people are able to communicate with their dead loved ones, showing that they still love and remember them. Barnumbirr is also an important creator-spirit in the Dreaming, and "sang" much of the country into life.

Venus plays a prominent role in Pawnee mythology. The Pawnee, a North American native tribe, until as late as 1838, practiced a morning star ritual in which a girl was sacrificed to the morning star.

In western astrology, derived from its historical connotation with goddesses of femininity and love, Venus is held to influence desire and sexual fertility.

In Indian Vedic astrology, Venus is known as Shukra, meaning "clear, pure" or "brightness, clearness" in Sanskrit. One of the nine Navagraha, it is held to affect wealth, pleasure and reproduction; it was the son of Bhrgu, preceptor of the Daityas, and guru of the Asuras.

Shukra is the Sanskrit name for Venus

Modern Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese cultures refer to the planet literally as the “metal star” (金星), based on the Five elements.

In the metaphysical system of Theosophy, it is believed that on the etheric plane of Venus there is a civilization that existed hundreds of millions of years before Earth’s and it is also believed that the governing deity of Earth, Sanat Kumara, is from Venus.

The astronomical symbol for Venus is the same as that used in biology for the female sex: a circle with a small cross beneath. The Venus symbol also represents femininity, and in Western alchemy stood for the metal copper. Polished copper has been used for mirrors from antiquity, and the symbol for Venus has sometimes been understood to stand for the mirror of the goddess.